First Russian-language LiveJournal Post

A post in 1999 demonstrates that LiveJournal processes Cyrillic encoding, sparking the Russian internet's most pervasive and influential early social media site. LiveJournal, soon known simply as ZhZh in Russian (for “Zhivoi zhurnal”), became a platform for poets, writers, political activists, essayists—and graphomaniacs. It launched or catalyzed several literary and political careers, and fed the budding market for conspiratorial thinking in late 1990s-era Russia.

View Artifact

The Russian Booker—Scandals

A series of five articles scandalously decrying the Russian Booker, the new literary prize imported from England.

View Artifact

The Triumph Prize

Launched at the same time as the Russian Booker and funded by the newly minted oligarch Boris Berezovsky (1946-2013), the Triumph Prize promised an even broader program of cultural guardianship and philanthropy.

View Artifact

The Miracle of Evgeny

A Russian soldier during the first Chechen War (1994-1996), Evgeny Rodionov was captured outside of the Chechen capital, Grozny, and reportedly executed for refusing to renounce his Orthodox faith. His image has since served as the inspiration for several new icons created in the post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church.

View Artifact

OMON Uniform

Although the police special forces unit known as OMON (Otriad militsii osobogo naznacheniia) was established before the fall of the Soviet Union, their now-ubiquitous light blue camouflage was only introduced in 1994, when OMON was deployed as part of the first Chechen War. OMON and its uniform have since been associated with street intimidation, market clearings, and protest-quashing, especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

View Artifact

Lada 110-series

The first post-Soviet Lada model, the VAZ-2110, appeared in 1995 and sold for between $5,000 and $8,000. Targeted at the emerging middle class, the car represented the manufacturer’s hope that Russian production and consumer power could come together to build a domestic market that would advance the economy beyond raw materials extraction and imported consumer goods.

View Artifact